


i'm tired of my mind getting heavy with mold

by underthe_willowtree



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: American Sign Language, First Meetings, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, gren is small, he's not in the first chapter but don't worry he'll be here soon, op is hearing, this is my first fic and i'm a bored college student please be gentle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23413291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underthe_willowtree/pseuds/underthe_willowtree
Summary: "With Sarai, she wouldn't have had to move her hands at all to make her irritation known. She'd have flashed her eyes at a certain angle, or flared her nostrils, or clenched her jaw. The two of them would have exchanged a look, had a conversation in a moment, and Sarai would have jumped into the situation headfirst, always mediating, always talking her way through the roadblocks, always making sure that Amaya and everyone else understood each other seamlessly. That's the way it always was, ever since they were kids - Amaya reacting, Sarai protecting. Amaya annoyed, Sarai secure. Amaya restless, Sarai...Sarai. Perfect, but kind and goofy enough that you couldn't resent her for it. A fierce sister. A responsible mother. Strong. Smart. Skilled.Dead."Amaya is a grieving sister managing her pain by climbing the ranks of Katolis's military. Gren is a young army recruit questioning his decision to leave home for the first time. She needs an interpteter. He needs a purpose. They both need a friend. An Amaya & Gren origin story.
Relationships: Amaya & Gren (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	i'm tired of my mind getting heavy with mold

**Author's Note:**

> i have been lurking on this tag for well over a year and i think it's high time i contribute to it bc what else am i gonna do lol. also this fic is kind of an offering to all the people who have been writing the jayana fics that have sustained me for months. i know it's not janaya but i might write one eventually! enjoy this one in the meantime!
> 
> title is from "oom sha la la" by haley heynderickx
> 
> a few notes:  
> i'm changing up gren's age here a little bit - i think he actually would have been only fourteen or fifteen when sarai died, but i wanted him to be old enough to join the army (with good conscience) so he's a few years older here.  
> sometimes, when amaya's signing and there's no interpretation of what she's saying, i (attempt) to write it out in ASL gloss, with ASL grammar. the proper format for doing so is in ALL CAPS, so when you see that, that's what's happening. here's a link to more info: https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/gloss.htm  
> most signs in here are also modeled after videos/pictures from lifeprint. it's a great site, but i've heard it's a little outdated at times.  
> please know that i'm hearing & have never taken a formal ASL class, and please correct me if you're Deaf/HoH/CODA/experienced in ASL.  
> also i know nothing about the way the military works haha  
> there's a bit of body talk/body image talk when gren's part comes in and a lot of discussion about Sarai's death (not graphically, just emotionally). 
> 
> comments would be so welcome! let me know if you're even interested in seeing more!

Amaya jabbed her index finger into her chest, then brought the back of her hand up to her chin and tapped it twice, almost smacking herself in the process of emphasis. I FRUSTRATED, she signed to Viren, whose eyes were trained on the crowd in front of them. It was the first day of training for Katolis's newest batch of army recruits, and Amaya had been put in charge of the operation by the King himself. The planning had gone easily enough, but upon her arrival at the castle that morning, she was met with a room full of officials who had, apparently, been assigned to assist her, though none of them seemed to have a clue what was going on. For the past hour, she'd been trying to find out who exactly the group of established soldiers in front of her were - their names, their ranks, that sort of thing - but every time she attempted to ask someone to repeat something she'd missed, they muttered something into their shirtsleeves and waltzed across the room to start yet another incomprehensible conversation with some old Military Academy buddies. 

She nudged Viren's arm with her elbow and signed once again. The High Mage winced and held out his hands, his shoulders rising in a _what can be done?_ gesture _._

With Sarai, she wouldn't have had to move her hands at all to make her irritation known. She'd have flashed her eyes at a certain angle, or flared her nostrils, or clenched her jaw. The two of them would have exchanged a look, had a conversation in a moment, and Sarai would have jumped into the situation headfirst, always mediating, always talking her way through the roadblocks, always making sure that Amaya and everyone else understood each other seamlessly. That's the way it always was, ever since they were kids - Amaya reacting, Sarai protecting. Amaya annoyed, Sarai secure. Amaya restless, Sarai...Sarai. Perfect, but kind and goofy enough that you couldn't resent her for it. A fierce sister. A responsible mother. Strong. Smart. Skilled.

Dead.

It had been months. Many of them. Amaya had heard that Ezran was almost walking now. She hadn't been there to see it.

The Breach...it didn't make any sense, that it was her safe place, that its cold walls and lack of breakfast options would ever become something desirable to her. But for all its smoke and danger, the stronghold provided exactly what she'd needed. Distance. Work. Faces to look at that didn't reflect her own pain.

While she'd been at the Breach, things had been good. She thought they'd been good, at least. If she was honest, Amaya couldn't remember too many specific events from the last ten months. She thought maybe her birthday had passed somewhere in there. She and her team had once dispatched a group of sunfire elves they'd caught attempting to scale the fortress walls. At some point, she'd sloppily hacked off her long, wavy locks, and when that somehow still felt too heavy, she'd borrowed a junior captain's razor and spent an evening revealing her own scalp. She didn't know quite how long ago that was, but judging by the irritating bangs that she kept blowing out of her eyes, it had been a while since then.

Things had been moving along, distractedly, sure, but still moving forward with little time for thinking. Then, she'd gotten the letter. She'd put in the necessary hours, it said in her brother-in-law's neat hand. She was moving up in the food chain. She could come back to the castle and claim a whole unit of her own, if she wanted. A message in the corner, messier than the rest of his words, read: _We all know you'd_ _be great at this. Please think about it._

Dutifully, as a high-ranking soldier ought to do for her king, she thought about it. Was she ready to see them all again - to see _him_ , to stand in front of her lordship and not be her sister, so close but not quite? Was she ready to stand in front of him and barely manage to be herself?

She didn't know, but the threat at the Breach had been relatively low for a few months, and she couldn't justify denying Harrow his request. Besides, she missed the boys, missed seeing Callum's tiny hands flutter when he remembered to use sign language with her, missed ruffling his hair and feeling Ezran softly pull at her own when the baby sat atop her shoulders. Though something in her gut still twinged whenever she thought of her nephews, the twinge had lately been accompanied by a soft, swooping feeling of joy.

It occurred to Amaya on her way back to the castle, though, that her long absence meant military turnover had occurred without her - the familiar faces she'd gotten to know in her stint as head of the Queen's guard would, in the absence of a queen to protect, have been reassigned, flung to the far corners of the kingdom. Things wouldn't be as she remembered - she'd have to relearn the entire operation. Her time at the Breach might have gifted her with a tight-knit group of combatants and a sometimes-worrying proficiency at being alone, but maybe, in exchange, she'd lost her social edge, the one she'd need to prove she was ready to get back in the game.

There was also the other matter to deal with, though she'd managed to avoid thinking about it until now, standing in a sweltering room full of captains and majors and colonels who nervously avoided her level gaze. 

At the Breach, most of her partners knew her from their days at the Academy, and so they were at least conversational in KSL; Amaya and some of her closer colleagues tutored those who weren't on slow days. They could all make do in terms of communication for routine things, sure, but on missions, they thrived, tuning in to each other's movements and intentions as thoughtlessly as if their bond were an extra sense.

Before that, at the castle, things had been different. She'd been friendly with some people - the baker, for instance, always somehow managed to get a message to her whenever a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies had just come out of the oven - but most she only nodded to in passing. If she needed to discuss something with one of them, she could make it work on her own. She'd carried around a small notebook and a charcoal stick in a pouch at her hip, which was fine on most occasions, and if there wasn't time for writing, she could gesture her way through more scenarios than you might expect. She'd read lips, if she had to, and got enough right to get by.

But things were only really good when Sarai was there. Sarai knew exactly what Amaya meant and how to say it and when not to say it at all. She knew precisely the right angle to stand at when she was interpreting others' speech, allowing Amaya's eyes to flick easily between her sister and the speaker. She knew when and how to yell at people if they were questioning Amaya's presence or asking Sarai not to interpret something snide they'd said (of course, she always proceeded to do so anyway). Sarai knew how to assert Amaya into a space, how to make sure everyone there knew that she had something to say and that she deserved the resources with which to say it. Though Sarai had suggested it a few times, Amaya had always resisted hiring a long-term interpreter. Why should she, when she had her sister by her side?

But Sarai was gone, and with her had fled the casual confidence that accompanied Amaya's last stint at the castle. Harrow could put together a few basic signs, but he'd been out of practice for almost a year. Callum knew more, but she'd never been able to teach him as much as she'd have liked; besides, he was only five and was already developing the bad habit of speaking back to her when she signed to him. 

Viren was another matter entirely. When they first met, around a year after her sister had started dating Harrow, he'd been eager to start learning her language. His eyes would dance as the two of them searched for KSL instruction books in the castle's immense library, and whenever they'd stumble upon one, he'd perform one of the first signs she'd taught him: both hands splayed out and waving rapidly on either side of the body, bent at the elbow and level with the face, accompanied by a smile - Deaf Applause. He'd loved it. She'd loved seeing his joy, the first enthusiasm at the idea of learning her language she'd encountered in years. Most people she knew treated it as an unattainable chore. His fervor to learn was refreshing.

Still, Viren's interests were fickle, and the KSL books were soon stacked up amid volumes on rare potions and the origins of dark magic. Though Amaya eventually grew to count him among her friends, the events after their fight with the Magma Titan effectively ended that relationship. As far as she was concerned, he had failed Sarai, had left Callum and Ezran motherless, had made a widower of Harrow and a brooding mourner of the strong and silly Amaya she'd once been. 

Amaya sighed. Just being here at least meant that she was finally starting to pick up the pieces.

Viren tapped her lightly on the shoulder, his brows knitted in what might have been concern. She didn't buy it, but raised one eyebrow in question anyway.

WHAT-DO? he signed, hands balled in front of him, save for his index fingers and thumbs, which tapped together a few times. "What should we do?"

The motley crew of officials _had_ been mulling around together for quite a while now. TIME WHAT? she asked.

NOON, Viren offered.

An hour as good as any, she supposed. Whistling sharply enough to make every soldier's head whip in her direction, she launched into an explanation of the day's events: the preliminary tests that would divide the recruits into training groups based upon strengths and weaknesses; the skills each group would work on over the course of a few hours; the final collaborative tasks that would allow herself and her fellow officials to evaluate the recruits at the end of the day and see who would need additional support. After she was done, the expressions on her audience's faces were as blank and confused as ever. She looked over at Viren, whose mouth was working nervously. 

She could feel her teeth clenching, her jaw setting in its usual, frustrated place. Slowly, she pointed at Viren and brought her index finger parallel to her temple, flashing it up and down a few times before making a fist in front of her body and releasing it upwards, brows furrowed, eyes fiery. YOU UNDERSTAND HOW-MUCH?

He visibly swallowed, his right hand forming an O-shape. ZERO.

She sighed and brought her hand to her forehead. This was going to be a long, long week.


End file.
